


not by the moon

by lilcrickee



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alpha Suh Youngho | Johnny, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Knotting, M/M, Omega Mark Lee (NCT)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:53:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24970378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilcrickee/pseuds/lilcrickee
Summary: Mark’s heat isn’t a surprise.He’s been fairly regular since he turned 20, a little dot on the calendar every four months, a time-off request sent in at the beginning of every year with all the weeks off he’ll need for his government mandated sick leave. It’s never a surprise as towhenit will come, but somehow it’s always surprising when it arrives anyway.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 32
Kudos: 530





	not by the moon

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally supposed to be a lot more porn-y as a big middle finger to all the dumb anons i kept getting in my cc inbox but, uh, it came out a little more soft than intended. not that i'm complaining, lol. on that note, i did tag this moreso than i have with other fics. if the dynamics in the tags don't work for you, here's my advice: hit that back button and don't bother reading the fic or complaining to me. this is the dynamic i like for johnmark, and if you think that's lame or boring or whatever, i don't really care. i'm fine with being lame and boring.
> 
> as for the rest of you, i hope you enjoy this unbeta'd slice of life piece.
> 
> title from the got7 song of the same name.

Mark’s heat isn’t a surprise. 

He’s been fairly regular since he turned 20, a little dot on the calendar every four months, a time-off request sent in at the beginning of every year with all the weeks off he’ll need for his government mandated sick leave. It’s never a surprise as to _when_ it will come, but somehow it’s always surprising when it arrives anyway.

Mark wakes up on Monday morning feeling sweaty and achy, like he’s coming down with a cold. He throws off the covers, lets the warm spring breeze from the open bedroom window fan his body. It’s not so bad yet that he can’t function properly, but Mark knows by the time afternoon rolls around he’ll be a mess.

“Hyung,” he rasps, flinging his arm out across the bed. He connects with a solid body, smooth bronze skin that’s managed to shake off the sheets in the middle of the night. Johnny grunts at the contact.

“Wha- ?” 

“We should have breakfast now,” Mark says. He rolls off the bed, groans as he shuffles across the room to the laundry hamper where he drags one of Johnny’s work button-downs out of the basket. There’s no point in finding clean clothes; Mark’s just going to sweat through them anyway. Besides, he likes that the laundry smells overwhelmingly like Johnny: crisp autumn air; the deep, dark scent of dark roasted coffee; something spicy that tickles at the back of Mark’s throat like a chili pepper. Mark can’t help but preen when he slips the shirt on over his shoulders and does two of the middle buttons up. When he glances back at the bed he finds that Johnny is already watching him, a hungry look in his eyes.

“Breakfast,” Mark reaffirms before stumbling out the door.

Eating breakfast on the first day is always Mark’s last shred of normalcy before he succumbs to his heat for five days. After that, all his meals come in variations of protein bars and cut up fruit that he and Johnny have diligently been preparing all weekend. They’ll have to move everything to the bedroom after breakfast; or maybe Johnny can do it while Mark cooks. Despite the dates being marked on the calendar since the beginning of the year, Mark always feels a little out of sorts when his heats finally arrive, like he’s suddenly forgetting something, or like there’s too much to do in too little time.

“Relax,” Johnny says, startling Mark hard enough that he jumps. Johnny just chuckles.

“Did you sleep alright?” Mark asks, grabbing eggs from the fridge. Johnny tugs them out of his hands and nudges Mark towards the toaster instead. Mark’s fully capable of cooking eggs on his own, but Johnny is better at making sure they stay over-easy; Mark has the tendency to let them go too long.

“Yeah, it was pretty good,” Johnny replies, putting a frying pan on the stove and cranking the heat. Their electric burner sputters to life. Mark pulls two slice of toast from their breadbox and pops them in the toaster. “Sometimes I’m really anxious the night before a heat or rut, but last night was good.”

Mark frowns. His lower back is starting to ache uncomfortably. “You get anxious?” he asks to distract himself. 

Johnny shrugs. He holds a hand out over the pan before reaching into the egg carton and cracking four eggs into the pan. They sizzle gently upon contact. “I know we’ve been doing this for years, but sometimes I get worried that I won’t be able to take care of you. Or, if it’s my rut, I worry about hurting you.”

Mark smiles softly as the toast pops. He pulls them out quickly, dropping them onto an empty plate and putting two more pieces in the toaster. “I appreciate your concern,” he says, licking the crumbs off his fingers. He can feel Johnny watching him. “I’m so lucky to have such a thoughtful alpha.”

Johnny growls, a low sound that covers the sound of the eggs in the pan, of the clinking of cutlery as Mark pulls forks and knives from the drawer at his hip. They rarely talk about biology in their everyday lives -- Johnny always complaining about how omegas are treated unfairly and how he has always viewed Mark as his equal -- but Mark knows how it turns Johnny on in the bedroom. He doesn’t see the harm in getting Johnny a little hot under the collar before they really get things going.

The second set of toast pops in the toaster, and Mark goes about retrieving them as Johnny slides the eggs out of the pan onto their plates. He puts the pan in the sink and says, “Take the plates to the table. I’m going to move all the food before I forget to do it later.”

Johnny would never forget -- he’s too good at taking care of Mark, and they’ve been doing this for way too long now -- but Mark does as he’s told. He would’ve done it anyway, but part of him instinctively bows to the commands that Johnny gives him, submits to the whims of the dominant figure in the room. It makes a shiver run down Mark’s spine.

Breakfast is a quiet affair, the two of them rushing through the meal even though Mark knows they have a couple hours before he’s really in the throes of his heat. They wash the dishes, pop open a couple windows in the living room, then venture back to the sanctity of the bedroom.

The food is all stationed on the bedside tables within easy reach. There’s a pile of towels lying on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, three sets of gaudy, patterned sheets on the dresser under the tv. This month Mark spots a set that has tiny pineapples on them, one with airplanes, one with dinosaurs. They always pick funny sets that they won’t mind throwing away after.

“Can you help me strip the sheets so we can put the plastic cover on the mattress?” Johnny asks, snapping Mark out of his daze. He tosses the two pillows at Mark before ripping their pristine white sheets off the bed and dumping them in the laundry hamper.

Two years ago Johnny and Mark had hauled their old box spring out to the curb and helped the furniture movers bring in a new Tempurpedic mattress. It had cost them an arm and a leg, but Mark has never slept so well since. It does mean, however, that Johnny is extra protective of the bed and insists they put a plastic cover over it any time they’re in heat or rut. It’s decidedly unsexy, but then again, Mark’s never noticed it before when he’s out of his mind from lust. 

The heavy plastic crinkles as they tug the cover on over the mattress. A moment later it’s covered with the sheets with the pineapples on them. They’ll have to change them in a couple days when Mark is lucid enough to be moved, and then probably again near the end of his heat. Hence the multiple sets. 

Mark glances at the clock on his bedside table, hidden behind bottles of water and mountains of protein bars. Not much time left. The waiting for his heat is almost as bad as the actual event, and he knows his anxiety is flooding into his scent by the way Johnny sneezes.

“Go take a shower,” he suggests, rubbing at his nose with a tissue. “When you come back I’ll rub your back.”

“You’re too nice to me, hyung,” Mark says, but he can’t deny that the idea of a hot shower and then his boyfriend rubbing the soreness out of his lower back doesn’t sound like a dream, so he obediently pads into the bathroom and strips himself of Johnny’s shirt and his underwear.

Johnny’s perched on the edge of the bed when Mark comes back in only his boxer-briefs. He’d be a little more embarrassed about how he’s tenting the front and wetting the back already if he weren’t so close to his heat. Instead, he watches the way Johnny tacks his movements with interest, like a predator scoping out the habits of his prey. Mark shudders.

“Come here,” Johnny says, widening his legs so that Mark can step between them. Johnny runs an appreciative hand along Mark’s sides, over the curve of his ass, and down to grip the meat of his thighs. He groans before leaning in and sucking a mark just above the waistband of Mark’s underwear.

“Johnny,” Mark says breathlessly. “I thought you were going to give me a massage?”

Johnny laughs when he pulls away, shooting Mark a cheeky grin before guiding him down onto the bed. “Can’t I admire my boyfriend a little?” he asks, even as he moves to straddle Mark’s hips, hand reaching to the bedside table for the massage oil he’d dug out for this specific occasion.

“Can you do it during a week where I’m not about to go out of my mind for your dick?” Mark asks, muffled in the pillow.

“Whenever’s convenient for you, dear,” Johnny says mockingly. Mark listens to the sound of the oil cap opening, the barely audible sound of Johnny spreading the oil on his hands, before Johnny’s pressing his thumbs into Mark’s lower back.

“ _Oh fuck,_ ” Mark moans, sinking into the bed. His back hurting is always his least favourite part of his heat; it makes him feel like he’s 80 years old. “Ugh.”

Johnny laughs, working his hands up and down Mark’s back, but always lingering in the dip of his spine. It’s enough that Mark finds himself relaxing into the sheets, eyes drifting shut to the rhythmic motions of Johnny’s hand and the easy sound of Johnny’s breaths.

When Mark wakes up again his heat is in full swing.

He feels it immediately, the hot, heavy feeling of the blood in his veins; the overwhelming ache that radiates through his entire body; the way he feels like he’s on the verge of overheating.

“Oh,” he moans, rolling his hips into the mattress, trying to get some sort of pressure on his cock. Distantly, he registers the sound of the mattress cover squeaking underneath him.

Mark can feel his orgasm building in the pit of his stomach. He’s almost there when a thought crosses his mind, sharp enough that it makes him stop moving: where is Johnny? He lifts his head and blinks around, stopping on the bathroom door.

The sound of the toilet flushing seems loud. Mark whines, flipping over so he can keep an eye on the door until Johnny appears, rubbing a damp hand through his hair.

“Oh, shit,” he says when he catches sight of Mark. “Figures you’d wake up the second I leave.”

“Johnny,” Mark gasps, arching his back. Without the ability to grind into the mattress, he’s becoming acutely aware of how hard his dick is and how empty his ass is. “Fuck, get over here.”

Johnny laughs. He strips off his underwear on his way to the bed, and Mark’s heat addled brain takes a moment to really appreciate his partner’s body: tanned, muscled, decorated with beautiful tattoos. Mark’s gums ache; he desperately wants to leave a mark of his own on Johnny’s body, but it’s not something they’ve discussed. Not at length, at least.

“Do you want to come first or do you want me to fuck you?” Johnny asks, almost clinical in the way he asks. He yanks Mark’s hips to the side of the bed so he can slide his underwear off and toss it expertly into the laundry hamper in the open door of their closet. 

“Oh, fuck, I don’t know,” Mark groans. He feels wet everywhere: the head of his cock is leaking and he’s dribbling copious amounts of slick from his ass. It’s all pretty embarrassing and Mark is normally pretty self-conscious about how much his body likes to try and prepare for anything sexual, but the animalistic part of his brain is demanding him to get on with things. “You should know me better by now, hyung.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Johnny says with a fond roll of his eyes. He sinks down to his knees, pulls Mark closer to the edge of the bed, and takes Mark’s cock into his mouth.

Mark doesn’t come immediately, but it’s a close thing. He loves Johnny’s mouth, loves how he can take all of Mark like it’s a non-issue, like gag reflexes don’t exist or something. Johnny sinks all the way down, throat fluttering around the head of Mark’s cock, before pulling back and hollowing his cheeks. The suction is so good, and Mark sobs, hands gripping the edge of the bed underneath him before he arches up and comes.

Johnny swallows, licking his lips like he’s maybe missed a drop, like he doesn’t normally spit after he sucks Mark off. It makes Mark’s wolf howl, makes his heart thud in his chest. “Need you,” he whimpers, reaching out for Johnny. 

Johnny goes easily, kissing Mark chastely on the lips before saying, “Get on the bed properly, baby. Gonna give you what you really need now.”

Mark groans, trying his best to shuffle his way onto the middle of the bed. His limbs feel like Jell-O, and he knows that by the end of the day he’s going to be exhausted. That’s the thing he hates the most about his heats: the physical limitations of his body versus the pounding need that runs through his veins. 

Mark manages to wriggle himself into the middle of the mattress while Johnny seems to double check that they have everything they’ll need for Mark’s heat, like they haven’t been planning this extensively since the beginning of the week. He’s hard already, which Mark always finds a little surprising. Not that he doesn’t think he’s attractive, but there’s a side of heats and ruts that are decidedly very unsexy -- a biological need to fuck or get fucked rather than letting it be a choice. He knows Johnny enjoys Mark’s heats -- and Mark does have fun during Johnny’s ruts -- but there’s not a lot of romance left in it anymore.

It doesn’t make it any less hot, though.

Johnny climbs up onto the bed and lays himself over Mark, pressing a kiss to his cheek, his nose, his lips. He ruts slowly against Mark’s hip, eased by the slick of his own precome. It’s filthy, but Mark likes it, likes being covered in Johnny’s scent.

“Fuck, stick it in me, J,” he gasps, hands scrabbling against Johnny’s back, fingers curling against the dark stretch of tattoo on his shoulder.

Johnny laughs into Mark’s cheek. “Sure, sure,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

He retreats, sits on his heels while pushing Mark’s legs up and back. Mark feels deliciously exposed, arches his back and preens a little just to try and rile Johnny up. He doesn’t know if it works, because Johnny just chuckles. “Yeah, yeah, you’re beautiful, baby,” he says, before notching the head of his dick to Mark’s hole and beginning to push.

Any other day of the week, Mark would like a little prep. Johnny’s got that stupidly stereotypical alpha build, and a fantastically stereotypical alpha cock, which means that no matter how much slick Mark produces outside of his heat, it’s always a bit of a stretch. Now, though, his body is prepared. He’s loose and easy and pliant, and though he knows he’s clenching, it’s still an easy slide until Johnny bottoms out in him.

“Shit, Mark,” Johnny mutters. He doesn’t waste any time, setting up an easy rhythm. The bed frame squeaks with each rock of his hip, now coupled with the crinkling sound of the mattress cover. A more rational part of Mark’s brain laughs at the absurdity of it. The dominant part of his brain complains that Johnny isn’t fucking him hard enough.

“Can you, like, pick it up a little?” he grunts, hands fisting the pineapple-covered sheets.

“Anything for the princess,” Johnny says dryly, but he does start to piston his hips faster. “You’re so mouthy when you’re in heat. Can we go back four hours when you were so sweet and called me hyung?”

Mark’s laugh breaks around a moan as Johnny nails his prostate. He can feel more slick leaking out of him. “You’re just as cranky during your rut,” he gasps, “and after I’ve been in heat for a couple days.”

“Fair,” Johnny grunts. He tips forward to brace himself over Mark. His neck is right in Mark’s face, and Mark is once again overwhelmed by how much he _aches_ to bite Johnny. They wouldn’t mate, but the implication would be clear enough, and there’s a very human part of Mark that is not ready for that conversation. At least, not in the middle of his heat.

“Fuck,” he mutters, and tips his face into the pillow instead.

Johnny’s stamina is no joke, but he can only hold out so long when faced with an omega in heat. Mark can start to feel the catch of his knot on every thrust, a whine bubbling in his throat at the sensation.

“Do you want to flip over?” Johnny asks, stilling with his cock buried deep in Mark. “Do you want to be on top this time?”

“Sure,” Mark says. When he’s deeper in his heat and more worn out, he doesn’t mind being crushed by Johnny after he knots. On his more lucid days he likes riding Johnny, or being spooned. It’s easier once they’re tied.

Johnny pulls out, dragging an involuntary bereft wail from Mark’s mouth. He rolls his eyes and flops onto a dry spot on the bed, slapping his thighs invitingly. “Come on, baby,” he says salaciously. “I’m waiting.

This time, Mark rolls his eyes, but he needs Johnny’s dick back in him as soon as possible, so he manages to roll himself onto his stomach and then crawl over Johnny. It only takes Johnny a moment to line himself up blindly with Mark’s hole and push in again.

Mark likes this position because it gives him some semblance of control. In a time when a lot of things feel like they’re left up to instinct, Mark can at least have this: easy movements as he rocks on Johnny’s cock, hands pinning Johnny’s chest to the bed. He can set the pace, take as much as he wants, and he loves it.

“You look so good, Markie,” Johnny says reverently, running his hands along Mark’s thighs. His knot is starting to grow again, tugging at Mark’s rim any time he lifts his hips and brings them back down. Eventually, Mark just settles for grinding, quick swivels of his hips that has Johnny’s cock rubbing against his prostate constantly.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Mark chants. Johnny plants his feet on the bed for better leverage and grinds his hips in tandem with Mark’s. He chuckles when Mark groans. 

“Close?” he asks.

“What do you think?” Mark snaps back, but there’s no heat to it. Only a soft grin, which Johnny returns. He shifts his hand up Mark’s leg until it can wrap around his dick, leaking profusely and bobbing against Mark’s stomach. It only takes two pulls before Mark is coming, clenching down hard on Johnny’s knot as it finally locks in place.

Johnny groans, a deep rumble in his chest that Mark can feel where he’s still got his hands braced on Johnny’s body. It sends a shiver down his spine, has him shaking as he does his best to milk Johnny’s knot. He wants to be filled, and that’s not just his wolf brain talking. 

It takes several minutes before Mark finally feels like he’s calmed down from his orgasm. Johnny’s knot has offered him a little reprieve, but Mark knows his lucidity will start to fade the further into his heat they get. He stretches himself out so that he’s lying fully on top of Johnny, head pillowed on Johnny’s shoulder.

“Well, that was fun,” Johnny says, hands idly massaging Mark’s lower back again. He feels sticky, sweat mixing with whatever leftover oil was still stuck to his skin. 

“I mean, sure,” Mark says, clenching around Johnny’s knot. It feels huge inside him; knotting outside of his heat is always something that leaves him feeling a little crazed with how full he feels. Now, though, he just feels content. Satisfied.

“Are you saying you’re not enjoying yourself?” Johnny teases. He shifts his hips and Mark moans as the knot shifts inside him.

“Sex with you is always nice, hyung,” he says. “Being in heat isn’t a walk in the park, though.”

He feels Johnny press a kiss to the top of his head. There’s the sound of rustling, and then Johnny’s tapping him on the hip to sit up. “Have some water,” Johnny says, offering him a bottle.

Obediently, Mark drains half the bottle before giving the rest to Johnny. He can feel the heat starting to simmer in the pit of his belly again, and now that he’s sitting up it’s easy to grind down on Johnny’s knot.

“Fuck,” Johnny says, spilling a mouthful of water on himself. Mark laughs.

“Can you come again before your knot goes down?” Mark asks, back arching from the intensity of everything. His nerves feel like they’ve been ramped up and electrified.

“Yeah,” Johnny gasps. He caps the water and tosses it somewhere on the bed. Mark hopes they don’t roll on it and crush it by accident. “But you know it’s -- shit -- really intense for me.”

“Story of my fucking life,” Mark moans. He speeds up the shift of his hips, rocking back and forth and clenching down on Johnny intermittently. Johnny’s moaning gets louder. God, he just -- he needs --

Mark can feel when Johnny comes again, can feel again how Johnny shoots inside him. It soothes the achie inside him again, enough that Mark feels like he might even be able to get a quick nap in before Johnny’s knot goes down and they get stuck in the cycle again.

“Fuck, thanks,” Mark says, flopping on to of Johnny again, tugging on his knot by accident. Johnny hisses.

“Yeah, yeah, any time,” he says. He kisses Mark’s temple. “Gonna sleep?”

“Yeah, might try,” Mark replies. “Don’t pull out, though. You know - “

“ - you’ll wake up if you feel it. Yeah, Mark, I think I figured that out the first time I tried and you cried for the next two rounds,” Johnny says with a laugh.

“‘Kay,” Mark murmurs petulantly. He can already feel himself start to drift. It takes a lot of energy for his body to run a temperature as hot as he is now. Belatedly, he adds, “Love you.”

“Love you too, baby,” Johnny says as Mark drifts off to sleep.

The rest of Mark’s heat passes in a similar fashion, though Mark doesn’t remember a lot of what happens the rest of the first and second days. It all feels like a blur of sensation. He does remember a particular instance where his mouth seemed to run away from him, where he’d begged for Johnny’s fat knot and how much he liked it stretching him open. Mark shudders thinking about what he might have said when he wasn’t so lucid.

He doesn’t remember changing the sheets, but by the last day of his heat he’s lying on his side on the set with the dinosaurs on them. Johnny’s fucking into him lazily from behind, mouth ghosting over the back of Mark’s neck. As tired as he is, Mark desperately wants Johnny to bite him, claim him.

“I don’t know why I’m always so excited for your heats when I know that the last days are like this,” Johnny groans. His dick must be so sensitive; normally Mark would love to tease him, but he feels too weak to even clench down on where Johnny is splitting him open, spread wide around the girth of his cock.

“I mean, I guess I’m the same about your rut,” Mark gasps. He pushes his hips back against Johnny’s, lets Johnny grind into him as his knot starts to form. “I always think it’s great to get railed the first couple days and then by the third I just want a break.”

Johnny huffs out a quiet laugh. He’s got his arms wrapped around Mark like an octopus, clinging tightly as he begins to work his knot into Mark. Mark whines at the sensation, feeling too sensitive. 

“Almost there, baby,” Johnny murmurs, kissing behind Mark’s ear. It only takes another couple dirty grinds of their hips before Johnny finally slips his knot in, locking them together. He comes with a low groan, and Mark follows him over the edge with a weak orgasm of his own. 

Johnny’s forearm is right under Mark’s mouth. Without too much thought, Mark tilts his head, mouths at the smooth skin there before stretching his jaw wide and biting. It’s not hard, more something to do with his teeth to get them to stop aching so much.

Johnny laughs again. “You’re like a little baby lion or something,” he whispers, hips canting forward as he continues to spill into Mark. “Like you’re teething or something.”

“My gums hurt,” Mark mumbles around his mouthful. “So, yeah, I really am teething, I guess.”

Johnny hums. Mark knows it means Johnny’s thinking about something but doesn’t quite have it all figured out enough to voice his thoughts. It’s okay. Johnny will tell him in time. 

They don’t stay tied for very long this time; the longer Mark’s heat goes, the less time Johnny’s knot stays inflated, like his body can’t keep up with Mark either. When he pulls out, Mark face plants onto the sheets, ignoring the wet spot under his hips and the way he can feel Johnny’s come leaking out of him.

“We have to clean you,” Johnny mumbles. Mark doesn’t have to look to know that Johnny’s got an arm thrown over his face. Probably the same one Mark had been mouthing at earlier.

“I know, but. Moving.” Mark groans. Still, the sticky feeling on his inner thighs is enough to get him rolling off the bed and flopping onto the floor.

“Don’t get come on the hardwood,” Johnny warns. “You know we’ll forget about it and it will stain.”

“Then come over here and help me,” Mark whines. He’s literally crawling on his hands and knees because he doesn’t trust his legs enough to keep him upright.

There’s the soft squeak of the mattress cover as Johnny clambers across the bed so he can peer over the edge at Mark. He offers him a soft, silly grin before levering himself upright. “C’mon,” he says, grabbing Mark around the waist and hauling him to his feet. Any other day Mark’s wolf would be duly impressed by the show of strength. Right now, the only thing Mark is thinking about is whether or not Johnny can just carry him to the bathroom.

They make it, somehow. Johnny props Mark up against the shower wall under the spray and works at scrubbing Mark down and fingering the come out of his body. Mark wishes it were sexier than it is, but he spends most of the shower glad that the water from their rainhead masks the tears that leak out of the corners of his eyes as he sobs from overstimulation.

“Sorry,” Johnny says, kissing Mark’s shoulder in apology.

“It’s okay,” Mark sniffles, inhaling a nose-full of water in the process and proceeding to cough it all out again. Johnny stifles his laughter. “Ugh. Come here and let me wash your hair.”

They crash on their couch after the shower, dressed in t-shirts and boxers, too worn out to do the clean-up now. They’ll have tomorrow. Mark falls asleep on Johnny’s chest dreaming of their regular, plain white sheets and a mattress cover-less bed.

The next afternoon finds Mark seated at their kitchen table. The washer hums down the hall as it cleans the lingering scent of heat from the sheets they used. They’ll be thrown out, but it’s only polite to wash them first, Mark thinks. Johnny’s in the kitchen, stirring a skillet of eggs and thumbing through their calendar.

“Hey,” he says.

“Is for horses,” Mark replies automatically. He knows Johnny is rolling his eyes, even though his back is turned to Mark.

“Your next heat lines up with my rut.”

Mark freezes with his mug of tea halfway to his lips. His teeth have stopped hurting, but there’s a renewed urge in him to _bite_. “Oh?” he asks, aiming for nonchalant and missing by a mile.

Johnny laughs. He turns the heat off under the eggs and brings the skillet and a potholder over to the table. “I just mean, you seemed to really enjoy munching on my arm yesterday.”

Mark wants to bury his head in his hands and not resurface for a while. “I guess we should talk about -- mating,” he says.

“I guess we should talk about mating,” Johnny echoes.

It’s not that they haven’t _really_ talked about mating; they’ve been seeing each other for a number of years now. They cohabitate, are co-owners of an expensive Tempurpedic mattress. They have a routine when it comes to heats and ruts. It’s all pretty domestic.

There’s only been one other instance in their entire relationship where their heat and rut coincided, but it had been about six months into the relationship and neither of them were ready to commit. Now, years later, it seems -- logical. 

“You’re kind of it for me, Mark Lee,” Johnny comments idly. He spoons a mouthful of eggs into his mouth using the same spoon he’d been using to stir them. Belatedly, Mark realizes he’d never gotten out utensils, but Johnny just offers him the spoon. They can share.

“I -- you’re it for me too, J,” he says. “I mean, yeah. Duh. You’re the one.”

Johnny laughs. It’s such a familiar sound. Suddenly, Mark can’t remember why he was ever nervous to have this conversation; he can’t imagine a life without Johnny’s laugh, without Johnny offering him the same wooden spoon to eat eggs off of. 

“Cool,” Johnny says. He leans across the table and presses a kiss to Mark’s forehead. “I guess we should think about where we want the mating bites. Personally, I’d love to leave mine on your ass.”

“Johnny!” Mark exclaims. “I can’t show that to my mother.”

“No, I suppose not,” Johnny says thoughtfully. “Okay, how about a bite on your shoulder and a _tattoo_ on your ass?”

Mark flings a spoonful of eggs at Johnny.

His next heat -- and Johnny’s rut -- aren’t due for another four months. They have a lot of time to think about where they want the physical manifestation of their bond to be. In the end, Mark doesn’t really mind. Anywhere is fine as long as it’s Johnny’s mark.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on twitter or [cc](http://curiouscat.me/monstplaza)


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